Emotionally unavailable mothers and long-term impact

[Adrianna]

This has been an interesting thread. My mother was definitely emotionally unavailable due to an undiagnosed mental illness or personality disorder. She was so passive, apathetic really, about life and people, and just had nothing to offer in that regard. I often felt like a tenant in a boardinghouse at my home.

My grandmother of course is dramatic witch type Ubpd/unpd, and my father unpd (possibly more) so no real source of support for this girl growing up. I was used to emotional abuse by those two and being ignored by my mother. No siblings. 

The part about hugs - when I first met my MIL she said that when she hugged me I was stiff as a board. Affection was not shown in my house. It made me uncomfortable. I'm better now but it has taken time, time away from that pd household and time to get in touch with my feelings again. While living with my parents I had shut my feelings down to the point of disassociation. I used to watch sad movies and think to myself, I'm supposed to be crying here, why am I not crying? I just didn't allow myself to have feelings because they were rarely ever acknowledged and honestly I just felt like a bother for even expressing them. Today I cry very easily at sad movies and have overcome that. I am in touch with my emotions. I see now shutting down those emotions was a Self protective behavior.

Can you imagine? Actually in this group I know you all can.  A child feeling like a bother for feeling sad, or needing encouragement.  I wanted to be loved so badly I clung to the hope my mother would show love to me.  I thought she was the most likely of the bunch to love me as she wasn't emotionally abusive. I found a stack of handmade cards I wrote her, in crayon, I love you written all over them over and over. I was trying so hard. I've cried for that little girl and she knows now that she deserved love. Sadly my mother just wasn't able to show love to me as she was so checked out with her mental issues. She wasn't up for the job.

Even today I struggle with feeling like a bother to people. I had a work situation where I thought I was bothering someone so I apologized. Ends up I wasn't bothering this person at all. I automatically went there though at the first sign of it. It's like feeling a need to apologize for taking up air, for expressing myself or having needs. I'm still working on this piece of the puzzle. Apologizing for my own existence sometimes is what it feels like. I guess that's a result of growing up thinking I don't matter. I'm still on this journey of self love and learning self care. 

[Jolie40]

I found a stack of handmade cards I wrote her, in crayon, I love you written all over them over and over.

you matter, you deserve love, and you're not a bother, Adrianna


I tried things, too
as a teen, I'd clean out/organize the kitchen cupboards (unasked) & alphabetize all the spices, lol

[Hilltop]

I also had an emotionally unavailable mother, I never got hugs and I remember crying in my room one night when my best friend moved away and she walked right past my room without stopping in.  I was so alone.  I was always told that I was in trouble because of my attitude, I did ask what is wrong with my attitude, what am I doing wrong, I don't understand and they would respond for me to work it out, it was just my attitude.  I was told I should get self help books - I was 10 years old. It pains me to type that because when I think back to being just a little kid who didn't understand why everyone was angry with her and why was I getting into trouble when the truth of the matter is that kids need to be taught how to deal with their emotions and that its ok to have emotions.  Eventually I just thought it was me, the very essence of me that was annoying and unlikeable.  I eventually got angry and lashed out and of course that only pointed the finger at me as being difficult.

My mother still today tells me I was a difficult child and I realizes now how bad this is.  She is openly telling me that for her it was difficult mothering me and she is still blaming me rather than seeing it was her being unable to handle emotions.  It shouldn't have been on a child to handle the relationship with the parents - I was told to fix my relationship with my father so he would speak to me, that I had to try really hard at being nice.  I had to get those self help books and work out what was wrong - as an adult this is mind blowing to think that was laid at the feet of a 10 year old child. I was just so confused as a kid, I tried so hard and it was just never enough and it's only now as an adult that I realize it was never going to be enough, the flaw was with them.

When I look back at myself as a kid my heart just breaks for her, I loved animals with so much passion, I loved nature, I loved seeing my grandparents, I had such a good heart and yet I was told over and over and over how bad my attitude was.  They never once thought that a father not speaking to his daughter for 6 months would wipe the smile off her face, make her tip toe around the house so not to set him off.  Its crazy.  I remember by dad throwing my shoes outside because I didn't line them up correctly in a row with the other shoes and then locking me outside when I went to get them.  I had just been watching TV minding my own business, he didn't say anything to me, he just picked them up and started throwing them. I was standing outside the window asking what had happened with my mother and father inside, mom refused to unlock the door.  Dad was calling me a bitch.  When I think back it was never going to be ok with them, never.  How does a child deal with that?  I remember feeling baffled, confused and you know what they blamed me for the whole thing because I didn't line my shoes up properly with the others. It didn't even cross their mind that it might have been fathers fault for not simply talking.  Then again my father once yelled at me that if they got a divorce it would be all my fault, not theirs, no their marital difficulties were all on me.  Pathetic.

Its so incredibly damaging but I plan on healing.  I plan on not spending my life listening to their script of me because if they got the script so wrong when I was just child why would they have the script right now.  Thanks to Blacksheep 7  I plan on also reading Toxic Parents and Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents.

[Hilltop]

Thanks for starting this thread.  I am still in the process where sometimes I think I have it wrong and I imagined it all and it wasn't that bad and then I type it out and I go oh, yeah that was bad.  I need to be reminded so I can grieve.  As Karyl McBride says if you don't fully accept it you won't fully grieve it and move on.  We can't stuff our emotions down, we have to acknowledge it.

[Spring Butterfly]

Over the past days I've been back to this thread to read. All that you've all shared is so very comforting for very different reasons. Thank you for opening your heart that way here in our safe space.

Exactly this with being instructed to go to my room and "pray" as the only way to get my unacceptable emotions under control because they are a sin! Ugh!

It wasn't until I found myself weeping at the drop of a hat and had no idea why, that a very wise and wonderful woman said to me..."I think you are pretty angry." Me? Angry? I was NEVER angry! Of course I was! I was so angry!

It was like I had packed away all of my emotions and responses and grief into a suitcase I was lugging around (exhausting) and that had now burst open and there was no stuffing it all back inside again. Messy for sure, but better in time!

To stay safe I also learned to become an extreme stoic. To the point of not feeling or being able to acknowledge even physical pain and reverting to being 'fine' during and after any kind of trauma or terrible scene in my FOO. The primary purpose of my young life was to keep my mother safe and alive as she frequently threatened her own life.

I was never safe, seen, shown affection or approval because honestly, the woman didn't have it to give herself, much less her children she repeately told us were unwanted. And there were always many messages in my mother's smallest of looks, tone of voice, gestures, words, and I learned to be hypervigilant in a defensive posture all of the time. Something I have had to really work through and understand is not necessary to my survival and is no longer serving me well. And my time here, in this group has been a big help in realigning my starting gate position.

Learning to grieve, feel all of the emotions and welcome the gifts they bring (thank you Karla McLaren for your sentinel work), to practice self care and to reject shame and invalidation, stepping into freedom and healing is a steep path, but such a worthy one.

What a tragic and beautifully honest thread this is. So grateful to share this space with each one of you!

Soooo much of this resonates and I can so relate - especially the parts in bold! It's always bitter sweet to come here and not feel alone yet I so appreciate having others in my life who get it. Sending a group hug in return!

...my MIL she said that when she hugged me I was stiff as a board. Affection was not shown in my house. It made me uncomfortable. I'm better now but it has taken time, time away from that pd household and time to get in touch with my feelings again. While living with my parents I had shut my feelings down to the point of disassociation. I used to watch sad movies and think to myself, I'm supposed to be crying here, why am I not crying? I just didn't allow myself to have feelings because they were rarely ever acknowledged and honestly I just felt like a bother for even expressing them. Today I cry very easily at sad movies and have overcome that. I am in touch with my emotions. I see now shutting down those emotions was a Self protective behavior.

Can you imagine? Actually in this group I know you all can.  A child feeling like a bother for feeling sad, or needing encouragement.  I wanted to be loved so badly I clung to the hope my mother would show love to me.  I thought she was the most likely of the bunch to love me as she wasn't emotionally abusive. I found a stack of handmade cards I wrote her, in crayon, I love you written all over them over and over. I was trying so hard. I've cried for that little girl and she knows now that she deserved love. Sadly my mother just wasn't able to show love to me as she was so checked out with her mental issues. She wasn't up for the job.

two things you shared hit close to home for me. When I finally broke free and moved away the people in that area were physically affectionate and that's when I noticed I'd stiffen up, like it was shocking to have someone other than my DH touch me. I became so physically affectionate and have recently discovered my love language is physical affection first. Not surprised. Oddly when I moved near to uPDm again she "rode me" for months about my displays of affection she observed me doing. THEN she flipped like seriously overly affectionate with everyone. Personally I think she saw how others loved me and were so happy to see me always and she was trying to mimic behavior that would get her that sort of love but it didn't happen because it wasn't genuine. People can feel it... or not. Then she started air kisses and air hugs instead of actual physical touch - who does that?? Someone told me last winter uPDm told them how much she LOOOOOVES hugging people and I was like  [erp?? waaaaaat??] They just smirked.

Second, some years back uPDm started returning all my childhood gifts to me. The gifts I had given her were being returned. It was right after I started simply claiming my life, not even real boundaries, I wasn't yet that strong, just trying to run errands by myself. With every returned gift rejection feelings poured in like an avalanche. Over the course of years amongst gifts were letters and cards I wrote as a child. She laughed at some, whined at some, thought some were "soooooo cute" [insert sugar syrup tone] but all I read were pleas and reachings of a tiny girl seeking her mothers affection and approval, desperate attempts at pleasing her enough to have won a scrap or crumb. It never came. I touched those cards and letters with such tenderness, I saw the little girl, I spoke to her and held her close, told her she was enough. Now I don't need it anymore. My internal mother is very happy and pleased with my existence, simply breathing and being alive. Nothing more is needed. In the end her spiteful rejected turned out to be a gift, a tool for me to heal my inner child.

Hilltop, how heartbreaking and I wish you a healing journey. Don't ever stop healing and growing! Karyl McBride is like a roadmap for me.